


In the limelight

by redpillrites



Category: Villainous (Cartoon)
Genre: A small apocalypse, Dark-ish, Gen, Miss Heed/Omega (hinted), Religious Themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-29
Updated: 2020-10-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:20:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27265618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redpillrites/pseuds/redpillrites
Summary: The new perfume was a blast.Then weird things began to happen.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 14





	In the limelight

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [В центре внимания](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27261535) by [redpillrites](https://archiveofourown.org/users/redpillrites/pseuds/redpillrites). 



> I took a liberty with Miss Heed's name.

There were always groups of fans crowding outside the penthouse. Missy looked out and waved a hand, which immediately caused loud cries of joy.

Paul approached with a smoothie glass. Missy accepted the offering and smiled playfully. His face lit up.

Paul had been her most loyal adherent since school times when he came as an exchange student and stayed, smitten by her image. She used to be just young Missy, Missy-Melissa back then. Now she fully adopted Miss Heed personality but Paul was allowed to still call her Missy.

Of course, simply being smitten didn’t grant you any privileges. Paul was a genius chemist. He was the secret of her unavoidable charm and the only one not affected by it. He was already terminally in love with Missy. And Missy appreciated him, probably, because he never got jealous and never bugged her.

Paul was her agent, her trustee and her personal slave. She trusted him with anything.

So when he told her he had found a way to enhance the essence, Missy didn’t question it. She was happy.

She had always loved to be in the limelight. There just couldn’t be too much attention.

The trial run was going to start at 1 p.m. She had lots of time to get some footage for her followers or just enjoy mingling with the heroes. Missy especially enjoyed Omega’s company. He wasn’t very fancy but it was okay. She loved being the brightest star in the company of others and Omega let her be it. He knew how to be a gentleman and he was handsome. They made a good-looking pair. They hadn’t announced it but all media considered them to be a couple. In a sense, it was true.

Missy smiled to her reflexion in the window glass. She decided to keep Omega for later.

***

Paul operated in his own lab. Tons of essence were produced there day and night. 

Missy didn’t like the lab’s bland sterile interiors, however Paul’s team was there to make her stay as pleasurable as possible. Of course, all of them had been reformed.

Paul talked excitedly about how they had been able to enhance the effect while Missy smiled and joked with the rest of the team, not catching a single word.

A group of test subjects were waiting for them. Missy gave them an indifferent look. Some returned it, some were mildly interested to see what was going on. No biggie. After the test, all of them would be her adherents. It usually took a couple of seconds. Paul never disappointed her.

The subjects were given essence containers and and breathing masks. Two seconds, and their eyes shone with awe. Missy walked towards them and saw no test subjects. Before her, there were adherents.

She always called them that. Followers were on social networks, fans came to promo parties, but those who experienced Missy in person would always stay her adherents. This word had some religious air to it. Missy thought that admiration for her was better than any religion. She enjoyed it, she was real and she was a heroine. 

The new adherents didn’t jump around her screaming or demanding an autograph or a hug or a photo or just to look their way. Their faces gleamed with awe. All of them came up and kneeled before her.

Missy looked back at Paul and laughed cheerfully.

***

The new perfume turned out a great success, obvious even during the promo campaign in Aterno-city. Immediately, Miss Heed acquired a powerful sponsor who offered to help with cross-border sales and advertising her product throughout the world. The international market was doomed to witness her glory.

The perfume sold out momentarily. First, by her fans, then by the rest of the people. Paul had outdone himself. The exquisite aroma left no one unaffected. 

They just needed to run the ad several times a day where Missy said in her most seductive voice «Suivez-moi» and the trick was done.

Miss Heed was captivating people’s hearts and the world. There was no summit higher. Maybe to control people telepathically. Well, Paul had never let her down before. He might just discover the way.

There was no fighting villains anymore. Missy bathed in love of her adherents. Everybody was one, now.

An then something weird began to happen.

***

Missy didn’t like horror flicks. They were banned from her house as well as crime drama shows. Too bad Paul loved crime drama shows.

Despite not indulging in horror movies, Missy knew the concept of a zombie apocalypse. It was the first thing that came to mind when she holed up in her apartment and got time to think.

People - her devoted adherents, her loyal followers, her slaves and her lovers - everybody wanted to kill her now. They followed her like hungry zombies. Missy didn’t want to believe it but multiple attacks made her reconsider. 

Of course, these people didn’t wish for her actual death. They just wanted to get a part of her, a tiny part of her sacred body. Yes, they deemed her a goddess. Idolized her. Prayed to her.

She saw. She heard.

_Miss Heed can defeat all the evil of this world. Miss Heed can save anyone in trouble. Miss Heed can heal. Miss Heed can resurrect. Anyone who comes in her presence will be touched by her grace. Anyone who gets a hair from her head will live forever._

No one wanted a hair. Everyone wanted more.

Missy was horrified.

She waited for Paul, he would know what to do. He would fix everything.

Paul wasn’t answering calls which was not uncommon when he worked, but now she couldn’t reach even the lab’s landline. When the door to the apartment started to give, Missy escaped through the window and flew to the lab. There would be guards and security system. She’d get help.

Security system didn’t help. The lab had already been breached, Missy saw pinkish plumes of smoke coming out the windows and vents. Through it, some figures could be seen.

She flew closer. It was Paul and his team.

Missy was relieved. She dashed towards them but abruptly stopped when she saw a pink glow in their eyes, even Paul’s. Paul, on the contrary, didn’t stop. The rest of them, with hungry eyes, started to circle her.

Missy escaped once again. When she soared among the pink evening clouds, she finally burst into tears. No Heed-bot was around to capture the beauty of sunset flickering in the salty droplets. She had lost it earlier in the day.

She was stuck in the damned limelight, it was getting scorching hot, and no one was going to turn the light off.

She was all alone.

***

Missy found an empty hunter’s cabin in the thickest part of woodland, miles from her hometown, and stayed there. She couldn’t think of any other place to go hiding. She’d revelled in her triumph when the sponsor enabled her world-wide popularity. Now she wished they had limited their operation to Atreno as they had planned initially.

Now the whole world was full of hunters, not the kind that shot deer and ducks. Missy used to hate them for this bloody sport, but now she was ready to kiss anyone who aimed at animals and not at her.

During all this time, she never contacted any hero. She was scared.

Missy had seen a couple of them patrolling streets with other fanatics.

Yes, they patrolled streets now. All shop-windows and stalls had posters with her face. The world hadn’t stopped turning, only maybe slowed a little at first. Everything went as usual for the exception that everybody had their eyes peeled for appearance of their godlike Miss Heed. 

Heroes were no exception. Apparently they had nothing better to do.

Missy was afraid of them the most. She knew some of them, had seen many in action. There were a few of them whom she wouldn’t be able to even escape if noticed.

So she went out at night, once or twice a week, crept into the closest towns and stole food. She came back via a different route, always doubling back.

She tried to keep far away from people and not get caught as long as possible, but there was an uncomfortable question in the back of her mind. How much longer could she bear such a life?

***

One morning, she discovered a note pinned to the door.

She was immediately engulfed by panic. 

Someone had been here. She’d been found. Soon the rest would come. She had to flee.

Missy couldn’t keep her head on straight. She stuffed the rest of her food into the bag she had stolen some time ago from a store, put on a hoodie back to front and took off like a shot from a gun.

Only when she dived into the heavy clouds, Missy realised she was still crumpling the note in her hand. She straightened it out with the trembling fingers.

_We can produce an antidote but your presence is required. Please, we must stop the madness._

Below was the address - Paul’s lab.

Was the antidote produced there? But the lab had been destroyed, hadn’t it? Was someone hiding there? It was possible someone had managed to restore it in secret. Could it be Paul?

All of it was too fishy. If it was a trap, she wouldn’t go there. No.

Missy came back to the cabin and spent the rest of the day watching it from afar, in case someone came to kill her. There was no place to run. She didn’t want to run.

Missy was tired as hell. No more she wanted to be in this limelight. She wanted to be forgotten for good.

Several days passed, and she found another note before her regular flyout. 

_Your presence is required at the lab for the blood samples collection. Without it, no antidote is possible._  
_The notes were delivered by a bot. I can’t go out there and risk your safety and mine. I may be followed._  
_Please, come. It won’t take much time, and the world might get a chance._

Missy thought for a long time. By the end of the following day, she made her mind.

***

She travelled carefully, hid behind corners, crept by the roofs. The moon rested behind clouds helping her to stay invisible. Since Missy shed all her glowing gadgets and stopped taking regular baths, she had overall become less visible in the night shadows.

On the outside, the lab didn’t seem operable. However, appearance didn’t mean much. Missy once saw how Paul put up a small science station in their bathroom.

The hall was dark. She was afraid to call out.

Missy moved through the darkness towards what she thought to be a dim light around the corner. She came to a conference room and carefully peeked inside.

A great system of vials and tubes and whatnot was constructed upon the long table. Chemical reactions constantly occurred Inside some of the flasks. A man was watching it.

"Miss Heed", he called in too a joyful manner when she knocked. She flinched a little, ready to flee.

"I nearly lost any hope to see you. It’s great that you came. I assure you, this decision is going to save us all."

He wore a facepiece respirator, darkened-lens goggles and a protection suit. In the light of the room, one could notice thin pink pollen floating in the air, disturbed by their movements.

"You look… eh…"

"Can you really make an antidote?" Missy asked.

"I sure hope so. Well, let’s not waste time. Shall we?"

She nodded and let him lead the way to a round, slightly neglected room with one exit. Missy sat on a couch to be able to see the door. She wanted to ask something, to talk after a long time of silent existence but her head was empty. She just watched the scientist (he was a scientist, wasn’t he?) prepare the instruments. 

"It will only hurt a little", he said in that joyful manner again and rubbed the crease of her elbow with an alcohol-soaked cotton ball. 

She didn’t register the puncture. Missy looked in the dark goggles but didn’t see anything there. The scientist hummed something.

One vacutainer filled with blood. He put it inside a container box and used another.

"Miss Heed, have you ever wondered where your chemist took the essence formula?"

"No", Missy said. Free-floating anxiety began condensing inside her skull. "What do you mean, took? He invented those himself."

"Maybe the older ones", the scientist agreed easily. He took away the second vacutainer and produced the third one. "But the last formula was suggested to him by someone else."

"Who?"

"Someone who wanted to sabotage your product and see what follows, maybe? Someone who was so generous to sponsor you? Someone who wanted yourself to become the victim of your crime?"

He disconnected the third vacutainer and put it in his pocket. The needle was left in Missy’s vein.

"Who?" she asked again, on the verge of panic. "Who are you?"

He stood up and took the container in his hand. A sticker with a black top hat flashed on its side.

"Goodbye, Miss Heed."

A man appeared behind his back. He came into the room through the only door. Then another appeared. And another. And another.

The scientist slipped out the door, nobody stopping him.

Missy sprang to her feet and turned the table over. Eyes with the pink glow were all around her. Full of hunger, awe and disgusting thrill. 

"Bug off!" Missy shouted in a haunted voice. "Beat it!"

The fanatics didn’t. They were closing in. There were too many of them.

"Get away from me! I can’t help you. I’m not a goddess! Get away, get away!"

She was no longer seen behind all the bodies. More and more people were coming into the room.

***

Two were present in the adjoining room.

One of them had a respirator on and was fumbling with an elaborate high-tech spray gun. The other stood by a narrow window and followed the bloody action with interest.

"Is it enough for the antidote?" Black Hat nodded towards the container box on the table, without turning back from the window.

"More than enough, sir", said Doctor Flug. "Even one sample would be enough. I wanted to have a spare, just in case."

He took out a vacutainer from his pocket and inserted it in the gun chamber. A yellow light came up indicating the preparation stage.

"After I take care of these, I’ll organize international air delivery. We should be finished within a week. Two, if we’re scrupulous about it."

"The sooner, the better."

"Sir, what’s the rush?" Doctor Flug approached the window with caution. "The order is complete. We have the required footage. Our client should be pleased."

"What do you think they will do next, doctor?" asked Black Hat.

Doctor Flug glanced through the window.

"Eh… They will take her remnants and make a cult out of it? Make a shrine or a sanctuary, pray in front of it. Although I don’t know how long their new religion will last after they realise the immortality was a joke…"

"Do you know how many sacrifices I have been deprived of since the execution of this order? The plague took over a considerable part of my followers, too."

"I didn’t think of that."

"Of course you didn’t", snapped Black Hat. 

"Surely it can’t hurt me, but I’m longing for my bloody offerings. If you know what I mean", he turned his head towards Flug and grinned viciously. 

The green light on the gun flashed.

"Of course I do, sir", Doctor Flug was visibly relieved. He grabbed the gun and released the safety catch.

"I’ll get to it at once. Don’t worry, sir, I’ll get everything done in the nearest possible time."

"I hope so."

Doctor Flug nimbly left the room. Black Hat faced the window once again. Mere seconds were left before all those people realised what they had just done. The spectacle should be entertaining.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading <3 Your feedback is appreciated!


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